i'm falling right back in love with being alive
by screaming internally
Summary: Jon Arryn refuses to marry Lysa and she remains unmarried by the end of the war. Post-war, Hoster Tully jumps on the opportunity of the un-betrothed-yet-slightly-younger future Lord of Highgarden, Willas Tyrell. Willas and Lysa are giving every relative organising this the hardest of side-eyes.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm falling right back in love with being alive**

* * *

Lord Arryn refuses to wed her.

He says that after having been wed twice and only death to show for it, he would not wish to pain himself or another wife with the likelihood of more pain, and instead his infant grand-nephew will be his successor.

It irks at Lysa's pride, a bit, that an old man would refuse a young bride proven capable of bearing heirs - even a ruin, like herself - but she doesn't complain. _Not_ spending the rest of her life the wife of a man with breath like a mouldy peach is hardly a punishment. Hoster Tully, however, is more than capable of committing his daughter to a punishment. Mostly, it seems to take form in forbidding her to leave Riverrun (not much of a problem, given the _war_ ), nor the presence of Septa Mordane until Cat goes North (actually something of a punishment, given that Lysa and Mordane have held a special level of disdain for each other ever since Lysa was a small child and proved herself incapable of being Cat).

It isn't until the war is over, and Robert Baratheon is king, and Cersei Lannister is his queen, and Lyanna Stark is dead, and Cat is _leaving_ , taking her (bright, healthy _couldhavebeenLysa'seasilyhelookedsomuchlikeher_ ) son with her up to the lands of eternal snow, and Petyr is _gone_ , has been for moons but his child that was in Lysa is gone too and - Lysa looks around and realises just how alone she is now. No husband to take her away from Riverrun, a father she wishes wasn't her father, no child (even though she had one, was going to have one but _damnyoutohellHosterTullyandtakeyourbloodyFamilyDutyHONOURwithyou_ ), and Edmure and Uncle Brynden clearly wanting Cat to be home rather than Lysa ( _naturally_ ). Lysa, as always, is alone, and unwanted.

* * *

Of course, despite Lysa's whole bloody existence being an exercise in family shame, she cannot become the spinster of House Tully - not if Hoster has anything to say about it.

Not that Lysa is aware of this - there is no reason for the (quietly, silently, _noonemustknow_ ) disgraced daughter of Riverrun to be attending the meetings of the King.

The coronation of King Robert Baratheon I, First of His Name, is a grand, lavish affair, and the wedding to the Light of the West, Cersei Lannister, is an exercise in even more stomach-churning wealth, and when the grand lords gather together in private rooms in the days later, Hoster Tully quietly finds a solution to his daughter and his desire for interconnection between House Tully and other houses paramount.

While Hoster does not always find it palatable when women jut their noses into men's politics, he is not foolish enough to ignore the fact that Mace Tyrell is clearly not the brains of House Tyrell - that falls to Olenna Redwyne.

A shrewd, shrivelled woman, Lady Olenna agrees to consider the match - her eldest grandson is only four years Lysa's junior, after all, and between Tyrell and Tully looks, she was not likely to receive ugly grandchildren from a union. Lysa would not be unhappy in Highgarden, Hoster thinks. Willas Tyrell may only be ten, but there is still more than enough time for him to grow into a good-son worthy of House Tully, and a knight besides. Lysa's shame would remain a secret - only four-and-ten, she was too young to have an indiscretion to her name. He just had to wait a few years, for the fruits of his plans to bloom.

Hoster Tully and his family leave the capital within a week of King Robert's conciliation of power, Hoster in good spirits.

* * *

Hoster doesn't mention any kind of betrothal to Lysa at all, in the following months after the war. Lysa is fine living in the dark of her Lord father's machinations - thinking of marriage, of having a child . . it hurts; a silent throbbing pain where a fantasy of that life might once have lived.

Cat writes, every few weeks. Winterfell is beautiful, apparently. Nothing like they'd giggled over, whispered over, when they were younger and still maidens, as opposed to mothers. Robb, Cat's little boy, is growing like a weed, babbling at everything. Cat finds she likes her husband - except for the bastard boy Lord Stark brought back, whom Cat takes care not to mention except in passing (yet Lysa can tell, even from the page, how much the boy's existence hurts her sister), Cat's new life seems to make her flourish.

(Of course it is, Cat gets everything _andLysagetsthescrapswhywouldLysaeverbefoolishenoughtothinkdifferent-_ )

Lysa tries her hand at what Cat did over their childhood - being the Lady of Riverrun. She isn't trying to step into Cat's shoes, gods only know how they'd never fit, but Lysa needs something to do, and Riverrun's library does not hold so many books that Lysa can feign interest in, nor does conducting nothing but embroidery for the rest of her life sound all that appealing, she no longer has a Septa, Mordane having gone north to preach to whatever future daughters Cat brings into the world, and Edmure is only barely beginning serious practice with weaponry - and he does not want Lysa's attentions when they both know he'd rather have Cat's.

She does take up a hobby of beekeeping - she finds the rhythm of collecting the honey, caring for the hive to be soothing, in a mechanical sort of way. She can do it without thinking too hard, which is nice. She only seems to think, these days. It isn't as if she has much by way of companionship.

She doesn't quite fit as smoothly into Cat's role as Lady, nor does she have a deft hand at numbers - she stumbles in places, but going by the smiles she gets from the steward and the housekeepers, she isn't doing too badly. She'll always be the second daughter of Riverrun, but maybe . . maybe Lysa can carve a little space for herself in the foundations.

Maybe she won't always be the lesser shadow of Cat. Maybe.

* * *

Father deigns him to be almost-a-man when he's four-and-ten - he's got a hair on his chest and everything to prove it, so he must be. Willas isn't particularly good at jousting, and he's competent with a sword and very good at archery, but Father wants him in the jousting runs. Willas isn't entirely certain, but he does it anyway.

Oberyn Martell is very good at apologising, apparently. He sends his own chosen maester to look at Willas' leg, along with the one sent by Uncle Leyton from Oldtown and the one sent from Highgarden, the three of them apparently bickering over the injury as Willas groaned in painful unconsciousness.

It isn't until he's been awake for nine consecutive days that they actually break the news to him – that he'd need a cane to walk for the rest of his days. He'd never be a proper knight. Never joust again (now, what was the tragedy of that?). And with the injury, marriage options would drop, heir to Highgarden or not.

Right up until Granny putters in and informs Mother that Willas has been betrothed to Lysa Tully for the last four years, why hadn't Father mentioned this before?

( _What_.)

* * *

Again, but roughly a hundred miles away: _what_.

Well, at least Lysa now has proof that Hoster Tully would always manoeuvre himself into the most politically advantageous match he could - and that Cat was always to be his favoured daughter. Cat had known of her betrothal from the moment Hoster could arrange it, yet Lysa has been betrothed for four years and yet knew nothing of it. Somehow, Lysa isn't even surprised. Making choices without bothering to ask her: the Hoster Tully tradition since 268 AC.

Still, despite the news that Lord Willas Tyrell is now a cripple, Lysa cannot bring herself to care overmuch about it: she is a stained woman ( _nevermindHosterkeepingitapuresecretbecause **noonecanknow**_ ), four years her husband-to-be's senior. Cripple or not, Lysa is the lucky one of this match. She smiles at the announcement, thanking her Lord Father ( _ **Hoster** heisnofatherofhersfathersdon'thurttheirdaughtersthewayhedid_) before turning away to turn back to her day-to-day work. She is not to marry Lord Willas for another year, when he is five-and-ten. There is still time for this news to become sour. Lysa is not holding her breath for happiness to be possible in her life.

Hoster Tully made sure of that.

* * *

okay, so this is crackity crackity crack crack crack.

obviously.

however, i mostly thought of this because of the theory that hoster tully wanted both his daughters marrying into Lords Paramount houses (or is this canon? i need to check), and theres only so many eligible bachelors for THOSE positions. the ASOIAF wiki says that Willas was born between 270 and 276 AC, and Lysa 266 and 268, so for the purposes of this fic, Willas was born 272 AC, Lysa 268, so there's a four-year age difference and Lysa is 14-15 during Bob's Rebellion.

I actually had to write that shit down because I CANT MATH.

(also i find the thing in some fics super weird where everyone and their mother seems to know lysa had an abortion? in canon not even CAT knew until hoster was dying - lysa hoster and the then-riverrun maester kym were the only ones who knew. it was secret. stop with this thing.)

this was gonna be a longfic but it turns out that i'm really bad at those, so this is gonna be a chapter thing.


	2. Chapter 2

She isn't sure what to make of Highgarden. It is everything advertised, from what she can see: rosebushes everywhere, the hedge maze surrounding the grounds, a white-stone castle living in perpetual summer. Lysa utterly understands why the singers are so enraptured by the Reach - it is the picture of all chivalrous knightly tales.

But she cannot help but feel that it must be false. Surely nothing can be so pure and untouched by the realities of the world - she learned the hard way that tales of love and romance can only be false. Lysa decides that she will not trust Highgarden, nor the reputation of the Reach. All of it seems too perfect to be true. Lysa has learned the hard way that things too good to be true often are (Petyr'sbabygrowinginherwomb _thesymbolofherloveforhim-butifitistheirlovewhywouldhecallher_ Cat?) Yet . . . the castle is utterly gorgeous. She decides that she will not trust it, but she thinks she will enjoy the beauty of the place, nonetheless.

House Tyrell awaits them at the gates of the castle, a vision of green-and-gold that blurs together in the distance of Lysa's eyes, for all that they're getting closer and more quickly. She imagines that the Riverlands' own procession is something similar: are they a smudge of blue-and-red in a distance, or is her husband-to-be capable of seeing more of her than she can of him?

Lysa flicks her gaze to Hoster Tully, his gaze steady on their destination. She can't help but wonder what he's thinking - the number of swords this alliance will bring? The claim House Tully may have on Highgarden, a dozen generations from now? She isn't certain she wishes to know.

* * *

Willas shifts his weight from one side to another, both impatient and wanting to wait forever. His cushioned chair - holding his weight until the procession from the Riverlands is close enough to the gate that his sitting could be seen as a insult - is making his backside become numb. Granny is giving him a Look from the side of her eye, along with Mother, her arms full with four-year-old Margaery. A look saying _Stop shifting, you look uncouth_. Willas stops shifting, instead craning his neck to Granny's other side, where Garlan and Loras are standing, not caring for how bored they look to anyone who can see them. Loras has the excuse of being six, but Garlan is almost fifteen the same way Willas is just sixteen; he should be caring more for how people see him. The Heir to Highgarden's bride is maybe fifteen minutes away - decorum is expected in the heart of the Reach.

Willas sighs through his nose.

He could remember, almost a year ago now, when he'd been in aching pain and barely able to move about, and Granny had given him the news.

 _('It'll be after your sixteenth nameday, Willas,'_ she'd said, _'old enough to be a man, says your fool father, and old enough to be wed. The Riverlands are good lands, for all they're incapable of_ not _being a battleground whenever war breaks out. And she's a pretty maid, your Lady Lysa, and Tully has ambitions - his elder daughter is married into House Stark, and he wanted to marry this one to the Kingslayer and Jon Arryn: I imagine he'd rather chew off his own fingers and eat them rather than wed his daughter to a bannerman, so long as she marries you. Your physical condition won't matter a whit to the man. You're a clever boy, Willas. You can make the Tully girl and her father love you.'_ )

Flattering words, from the Queen of Thorns.

Willas has to fight back another sigh. Why is standing about outside for a full hour before guests arrive the norm?

* * *

Stepping down from her horse may just be the hardest thing Lysa has ever done. She can feel her grip tightening on the reigns, is sure her knuckles are as white as the stones of Highgarden's walls beneath her gloves. Uncle Brynden's outstretched hand to help her down is the only reason she can imagine she lets go. Uncle Brynden - for all he's gone so often since Hoster keeps hinting at marriage for him - is the one man she can believe wants good things for her. Edmure doesn't count, Ed's a boy still, and he idolises Hoster to a degree Lysa is certain Ed would call her a liar if she told him what Hoster had done to her. _(Afterall,HouseTullyisFamilyDutyHonourandtheonly honourstainedthatdayhadbeenherown - aman'shonourisn'tstainedthesamewayawoman'sisafterall)_

Lysa wishes Cat was here, with her. Lysa had been there the day Cat had wed her northern Stark man, she thought it only fair if Cat was here for Lysa's. But Cat was with child, _(naturally)_ and couldn't travel. She had sent Lysa a raven full of best wishes, and Lysa has it tucked into her skirts. It's the only piece of her sister she has, right now.

Uncle Brynden helps her off her horse and Lysa remembers her courtesies, turning her full attention to the people who, within the week, will be her family.

She can pick her Lord out of the line immediately - a boy who looks to be growing tall, and handsome too. Curly brown hair, matching dark eyes, a green-and-gold surcoat and an ivory-handle cane that he isn't leaning on quite as heavily as Lysa would have expected. She thinks it's the cane that adds a few years to him - most men would not need one until thirty at the youngest, yet here he is, sixteen and four years Lysa's junior, and one could be forgiven for assuming Willas Tyrell to be at least twenty.

She can't help but think that the age difference would be one more _felt_ than _seen_ between them. For all that Willas Tyrell may be sixteen-going-on-twenty, Lysa can never help but feel nineteen-going-on-thirty. Although, she thinks, as Hoster and Mace Tyrell make the appropriate noises of courtesy at each other, that Willas Tyrell may just feel the same towards her. After all, Lysa's . . indiscretion _(saysHosterbutitwasloveonlyeverloveforLysa)_ is only known to three, and one is now dead. Old Maester Kym, her poisoner and Hoster's collaborator in more than just House Tully's second daughter's agony, is old and rotting in the ground.

Perhaps Mace Tyrell may know of it - no, not likely, she thinks, gazing at Tyrell's doubled chin and smile-lined face. A man so hungry for honour and glory that he pushed his heir into a joust at fourteen would not betroth that same son, no matter how crippled, to a ruined second daughter. Lysa flicks her eyes to Hoster, smiling at his lies coming to a victory. Hoster Tully was a man able to keep his own secrets. Lysa would have to keep them as well, for all that maidens and mother were supposed to be able to trust their menfolk, and Hoster's secrets sometimes felt like bile behind her teeth, burning away at the inside of her mouth in desperation to be spat out.

Perhaps Lysa is simply just the token bargaining chip, the almost-an-old-maid daughter with no apparent prospects, young enough that a crippled boy now recovered enough to fuck an heir into, nothing more or less. Lysa would be not the least bit surprised, if that were the case.

* * *

Loras crawls into bed with Willas, that first night. After a feast of seven courses and dancing Willas could not participate in - he may be able to walk but dancing is a bit beyond him just now - Willas cannot do much with his brother clinging to him like a vine except stare at the canopy. Lysa Tully is truly a lovely maid, all white skin and pale eyes in contrast with her striking hair, but Willas cannot help but feel apprehension. She hadn't flinched at the sight of his cane, or his limp, but they were expected to bed in less than a week, and his knee was still a ruin of scarred flesh and swollen blood. Willas had been expecting for a year for his bride-to-be to blanch at the sight of his injury, covered or otherwise, or to pout at his inability to dance. Instead, she had made polite conversation and refrained from dancing the night away.

But still . . she was beautiful. She seemed kind, and she knew that he was injured. Perhaps . . perhaps she may love him, one day.

* * *

notes: maester kym, i imagine, is someone who helped hoster in the Southron Ambitions plot, the way the winterfell maester was for rickard stark (says barbrey ryswell, ADWD)

so, uh. lysa's got some self-esteem issues going on in this chapter, and a little bitterness over cat and how well cat's life is going rn. willas has got some issues to, given that he's disabled in the very ableist westeros. don't worry - these two will make each other better, i promise!

(also, i had to try so hard to not end this with willas getting a boner over lysa. cmon. the boys sixteen and lysas pretty. you KNOW it'd happen)

my excuse for not writing more for this sooner is that i'm approaching the end of my school year and my assignments have been KICKING MY ASS. im supposed to be writing an essay on performativity of wealth in roman tyrants, yet here i am


End file.
